I am not sure what you really mean by "Unpopular clients". Please explain.

unpopular patients
in our carrier nurses often encounter with the patients they(nurses) for some reasons don't like. This labeling patients as "unpopular" or "difficult" leads nurses to provide minimum care, to avoidance, just do the physical task and not see the patient as a whole person, not listening and not trying to understand why the patient acting "difficult".
e.g. the patient with HIV who acts aggressive and verbally or physiclly! abusive.. or patient who is "demanding" and ignores other patients needs and wants to be cared first, ignoring other priorities, who threatens and complains, there are many reasons why nurses sometime prefer to avoid sertain patients.. I would like to heare your opinion how to help nurses to deal with it, how to provide the best care and not to do harm.. because avoidance can do harm too.. emotional and sometimes physical too.. also many nurses feel guilty for their own actions...what are the solutions?

ps: I am sorry for mistakes in spelling, english is my second language, and I am working on getting better with it,

No worries mate I will have to think about what you have asked and get back with you.

Your question really isn't about difficult patients, it's about DIFFICULT PEOPLE, which every profession has to learn to deal with. When we describe someone as being "difficult", we usually mean their behavior is "Difficult under stress". Remember, that nursing is a VERY STRESSFUL profession. Under stress, nurses tend to fall into two categories: Passive or passive-aggressive types; in some specialties you find out right aggressive behavior. Because the nature of our work can be so very task-oriented, and because most nurses are concerned with GETTING THINGS RIGHT (can't make a mistake) and tend to be analytical, you see certain behaviors over and over in nurses. The difficulty arises when nurses work with patients who, because they are ill, are also under stress. It's been my experience that patients tend to fall into the GET ATTENTION category of behaviors and this is why nurses tend to clash with their patients. For the most part, nurses haven't been taught effective coping skills for dealing with and managing these difficult people.

For your own benefit , I would read (or listen to) a book called "Coping with Difficult People" by Robert Bransom. It's an excellent start for understanding these behavior types. Also "How to Deal With Difficult People" by Rick Brickman.

And you are right about "listening". Most of the nurses you describe could benefit from a refresher course on active listening.

unpopular patinets
Obviously I don't have a clue how to deal with them, according to last DON. I do want to congratulate divacura on her english. You speak it and write it better then most people in the states.

very interesting topic, I work in psych and i encounter this frequently. You are right, whoever said that nurses aren't taught how to deal with difficult people, I also believe that if we taught nursing students effective coping communication and assertiveness skills we could start to change the culture of nursing and decrease the negative gossiping and backbiting behaviors in the workplace.
I have found that one of the most difficult things for people who work in my field and have a hard time with "difficult" or "unpopular" patients to do is not to personalize the patient's behavior. This is quite a difficult task and only becomes easier with time experience and good supervision. I deal with a host of "difficult" populations on a daily basis(drug addicts, self mutilators, aggressive people, the ever popular"borderlines") and have become pretty good at looking at the person and not the behavior. Some of it comes naturally but it can be learned
I am not aware of any research but if you find any keep me posted thanks

nurses are people too, unpopular clients are usually very mentally draining in an already draining job. These people usually do not enjoy the continuity of care others do because they can only be handled one shift and then passed off. The sad thing with nursing is that hospitals say we need to be all about customer service, thus meaning patients can treat nurses like complete shit and we still have to go in the room with a smile on our face. Nice huh, I love my job do not get me wrong, but somewhere along the line nurses rights were lost and I think some of the burn out rate is having to put up with these clients and families with no-one saying nurses need respect.

Unpopular patients
I agree with you totally misama, its one of the major reasons for burn out, and those of us who knew nursing when it was much better want out of nursing so badly. I found the answer for me I think, I went into home care, only have to deal with one patient, who usually doesn't even talk, and the family. I don't see it getting any better in facilities. We are treated as if we are robots who are just put on the shelf when not needed, then reactivated, instead of real people, who have lives of their own.

Unpopular Patients
I have dealt with many obnoxious, mean, unpopular patients and I've found that the best way to deal with them is to view them like you would a precocious child. I don't mean treat them like a child, I mean set boundries/limits. Example: If they don't want to take a bath in the morning, give them a choice; take a bath now or in 30 minutes. Take a shower or take a bath. If they don't want their dressing changed, do an assessment of their pain. Maybe they need pain meds before the dressing change. Talk with the MD about that. Most of them will write an order for a prn before the dressing change. When a patient shouts obcenities at you, DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY !!! Keep your mouth closed and walk out. If they hit you, use every ounce of restraint you have to keep calm and walk out! Fill out an incident report and let the Nurse/Unit Manager/Supervisor know. Just DOCUMENT EXACTLY what is said and done, so if there is a complaint, you're covered. Also notify the Nurse/Unit Manager/Supervisor so they are aware. One more thing you might do is talk with the MD about a psych consult for possible depression. Maybe the patient is not sleeping well. There really are numerous things that can be assessed to try to help change the patients behavior. Things like this will give them a sense of control of what's happening to them while they're incapacitated. Most, not all, of the unpopular patients are like that because they are stressed and feel like they don't have any control and being difficult and obnoxious is their way of "controlling" what's going on.

One patient I had, refused to take his meds and was very hateful to all of the staff. One day he turned on me. He started cussing at me and refused to "take all those damned pills". I looked over his diagnoses and his med list. I went in to his room and explained the meds and he said he wasn't going to take anything. I asked him if he would take the meds that he really needed. We went over his meds again and he took the "important ones" (cardiac and b/p). About 1/2hr later I went in and asked him if he was ready to take the rest of his pills and he agreed. He said that he just didn't like taking "all those pills at one time". He and I never had a problem again.

I hope this helps.